When it was at its best, Star Trek: The Next Generation transcended the normal confines of syndicated sci-fi television and used the medium to tell powerful, deeply resonant stories about humanity and our contemporary world. We get misty at the end of "The Inner Light" because it's a well-written, emotionally-gripping tale about how the transience of the human condition distills and magnifies joy, hope, loss, and sadness. Behind the reused visual effects shots and the endless parade of bumpy-headed aliens, the show's finest moments still stand out in memory—even though, shockingly, more years separate ST:TNG's premiere and the present day than separate the original series' debut and that of TNG.

But today, we're not here to talk about how good TNG was: we're going to talk about how bad it could be. For every "Family" or "Measure of a Man," there's a "Masks" or an "Angel One" waiting in the wings. Over its seven-season run, the crew of the Enteprise-D had some truly awful, awful, awful moments (usually involving kids, transporters, holodecks, or all three at the same time). Chances are that unless you're a Trek aficionado, you won't remember all of the stinkers we've assembled below—even if you've seen them, your brain has probably repressed the memories. Fear not: Ars is on the case, unearthing buried pain and suffering and bringing it back to the surface, boldly going to places that no one should visit ever again!

"The Naked Now"

As plot devices go, "space virus that makes everyone act all goofy and irrational" isn't the best basis for a strong episode. I could let it slide, though, were it not for the fact that "The Naked Now" was just the second episode of The Next Generation to air, after the two-hour "Encounter at Farpoint" premier. That means viewers had next to no idea how the crew should be acting to contrast with the ridiculousness of a ship full of child-like fools. Are bald captain guy and doctor lady—whose names at this point we might not even have committed to memory—going to get it on or not? And why is this virus affecting the robot guy? Isn't he a robot?

Even with the benefit of hindsight, "The Naked Now" doesn't gain much in the way of incisive character-based moments, except for providing additional evidence for the insufferable know-it-all-ism of Wesley Crusher (and I'm not even going to start on an impaired Data proving he's "fully functional" by sexing up Tasha Yar). It feels like a story from a different, less thoughtful type of sci-fi show, which makes sense when you consider it's an adaptation of a 1966 episode of the original Star Trek. It could only get better from here...right?

—Gaming Editor Kyle Orland

"Journey's End"

There were so many choices for bad episodes. Anything involving the pleasure planet Risa was on my list; there were also so many easy choices from season one, before the show really found its feet (I had to forbid Andrew Cunningham from just submitting "all of season 1" as his pick for this piece). But I wound up focusing my gaze on season seven, because that final season is host to some truly dreck-y Trek. "Bloodlines" is awful, "Emergence" is ludicrously terrible, and I'm pretty sure "Sub Rosa" was actually a prank that got aired by accident.

In the end, it came down to either "Masks" (wherein a dead culture takes over the Enterprise by making Data talk in 48 different funny voices), or "Journey's End" (a.k.a. "the one with Wesley and the Native American stereotype planet"). For all its awfulness, "Masks" at least lets Brent Spiner play around and have some fun—whereas "Journey's End" is just 40 minutes of stupid capped off by a literal deus ex machina to save the day.

It's been years since I watched the episode, and I couldn't force myself to sit all the way through it to write up this piece, either—it's that bad. It's not the cast's fault, either—unlike some other season 7 episodes, no one phones in their performance here. Picard chews the scenery with tone-perfect angry speeches to Wesley about duty and honor, and Wil Wheaton does a great job of playing a suddenly very out-of-character Wesley. No, the failing here seems to be on the part of the writers.

The plot feels like the result of hours of sleepless brainstorming by a bunch of people on a rapidly approaching deadline—as if, at about 3am the morning the script was due, someone yelled out "GUYS, I've got it: let's do a deep criticism of colonialism and national policy by drawing a parallel between a Federation-Cardassian dispute and government land-grabs of the late 1800s!"

And then, instead of shooting the idea down, someone else yelled "And we should have actual for-real Native Americans in it! We've had Nazi planets and Roman planets—we need a Native American planet!" And then instead of a third person punching the first two people in the face, they banged out the screenplay and turned it in and then all fell asleep at their desks.

Actually, the person most directly responsible for this episode is none other than Ronald D. Moore, who also wrote some of the greatest TNG episodes (along with, you know, Battlestar Galactica and stuff). Moore's touch shines through in a few places—the scenes with Wesley and Picard are actually quite good!—but it's hard to understand what the hell he was trying to accomplish with the colony that looks like a hastily built My First Adobe Village on a soundstage. The planet's inhabitants are a pastiche of 1950s-era "Cowboys and Indians" antagonists, and once they start nagging Wesley about pantheism and how he needs to get his Space Peyote on and do a "vision quest," I was ready to pull the eject handle and bail out.

The ending, of course, is the best part of all (and by "best" I mean "worst"). After writing themselves into a corner with bloodshed and massacre about to explode all over the place, time literally freezes and The Traveler appears. You remember that guy, right? Back from season one? Well, it turns out that he's been watching Wesley for a long time, like a creepy extradimensional ceiling cat, and the time has come for for Wesley to embark upon a real spirit journey: leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong—and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Or something.

And so off into the space-time sunset rides Wesley Crusher, never to be seen again (unless you count the scene he was cut from in Star Trek: Nemesis). As a send-off to one of the show's main characters, it's pretty stupid; as the climax of one of the final episodes of a well-loved series, it's just bloody inexcusably terrible.

—Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson

"Rascals"

I should preface this by saying even though I dislike this episode very much, TNG was deep into its run by the time it aired. The cast members are very comfortable with each other, and by season 6, even the clunkier episodes had a familiar, confident stride to them that was absent from the early seasons.

OK, that said, I really hate "Rascals."

There are some entertaining kernels in the A-story—watching Lil' Picard struggle to maintain his gravitas offers some good moments (though watching Miles and Lil' Keiko struggle to maintain their marital normalcy is weird-to-creepy). The best moments are probably given to Lil' Ensign Ro, whose first childhood was spent in a Bajoran refugee camp. Lil' Guinan, unflappable and serene as ever, helps her connect with her inner child.

The entire episode falls apart about halfway through, though, when half a dozen Ferengi in a couple of beater Klingon Birds of Prey almost instantaneously disable and board the Enterprise. At this point in Trek, the Ferengi were still... problematic. The sneering, ugly race would later be afforded some small amount of dignity in Deep Space Nine, but here they still had more in common with the laughable one-note aliens introduced in the show's bumpy first season.

So, a handful of stupid Ferengi take over the Enterprise with virtually no effort (everyone has phasers, but few if any shots are exchanged). The Ferengi begin beaming the ship's adult passengers down to the surface of a nearby planet and lock all of the kids in Schoolroom 8, but joke's on them! Because some of those kids are actually adults in kid bodies, and they save the ship!

Think about that one for a second. A bare handful of Ferengi take over the entire Enterprise—and they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids! These people routinely handle Q, the Borg, the Romulans, and a whole cavalcade of monsters-of-the-week, but apparently their collective Achilles heel is "Ferengi with cap guns." The Ferengi takeover is obviously intended to give the kid story some dramatic weight it would otherwise lack, but it ends up transforming what was probably a promising premise in the writers' room into a lopsided mess.

Add to this the fact that the episode sidelines Patrick Stewart early and doesn't bring him back until everything's wrapped up, and you've got yourself one weaksauce outing. Seriously, I hadn't watched an episode of TNG in a while, and while most of the main cast holds its own, the show just wouldn't have worked without the classically trained, Shakespearian actor in the captain's chair.

I think you guys nailed a lot of the annoying episodes, but I was surprised no one mentioned "A Fistful of Data" one of the worst TNG episodes there was! Not only was it yet another holodeck episodes, but you have to endure Alexander. I tried to re-watch it and couldn't endure it.

Sir, this lynch mob is for people who actually appreciate good Trek. We don't want your kind here!

Seriously though, I don't see what's not to enjoy. It's a great little episode about two people finding common ground even though they can't communicate that well. It speaks to the universal facets of human nature that drive us all, as well as having a neat language conceit (even though it'd probably be impractical in real life). Not to mention Patrick Stewart gets a lot of good acting in.

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

I understand where you guys are coming from in your love for Darmok, but I have to agree with Peter. While the plot is a good setup for Picard, linguistically its utter nonsense. Totally pulls me out of the episode because I just start thinking about how it could never work.

Also, some good write ups by Zach Handlen over at the avclub.com -- he's gone through every episode of TOS, TNG and almost all of DS9.

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

At an Austin, Texas convention in 2012, Gates McFadden stated she wasn't very fond of this episode. "I was basically in love with a lamp! This woman is a doctor and falls in love with a lamp! How the hell does that work?"

It's a terrible episode, made all the more terrible by the fact that some people actually like it. They're objectively wrong.

No, you.

Here's the thing. The episode was trying to capture the idea that different people communicate in different ways. Most foreign languages aren't hard because of the grammar or vocabulary, but because of the idioms. There are idioms threaded throughout languages that are more subtle than "in a New York minute". We use different prepositions (on/in/by/above/within/into/at) in English than in German, our near-linguistic-neighbor. They're idiomatic.

Now, the writers have to deal with both time constraints and making something that most of the audience can "get" within a very short amount of time. It could only be a kind of a stupid analogy for a high concept only a linguist would think of. So, "Juliet on her balcony". Now the audience can say "Hey, okay, I get it. There's probably more to it, but I can get that part of it."

Now, as you say, you've got to have a language to communicate more basic ideas than the pure metaphor language of the culture in Darmok. They probably consider that language to be something like baby talk, and would consider it superlatively condescending to speak to an adult that way. I think it's an interesting idea, though one does wonder how the hell they developed warp drive without an apparent mature language for scientific concepts.

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

NO VAK-SEEN!

It was really, really, really hard not to just throw the whole of S1 on the pile. "Code of Honor" is awful. "Justice" is just fucking stupid (and it was also a really weird episode to watch with parents). "Too Short a Season" is embarrassing.

But at the same time, there are also a ton of great S1 eps. "11001001" is fun and shows off some neat stuff, even if it overuses the holodeck. I love "Where No One Has Gone Before"—it's one of my favorite TNG episodes. And "The Battle" is just a cracking good time.

I completely agree that the premise of Darmok is utterly nonsensical from a linguistic perspective, and further I resent it for perpetuating the flawed understanding of language that allowed it to ever be considered in the first place.

Nonetheless, I don't really think that's sufficient to call the episode one of the worst ever. Other than the premise it's a pretty strong episode, and with some modification it could easily tell the same story in a sensible way. Though I suppose in some ways, things that approach perfection and then fail spectacularly in one aspect can feel more disappointing than something that is merely consistently bad.

Funny, I am just now watching the series, season 4 "QPid" where they play Robing Hood...One of the fun things about the series is how they could do all these weird episodes which did not have anything to do with space or space travel.

There are definitely a few bad episodes but also a lot of good ones so in total it turned out pretty well.

Great article. I'd like to see a similar one w/ TOS. There are a few stinkers in there too...

I'm ashamed to admit I haven't actually watched that much TNG. Never watched it when it was on the air, and I got halfway through Season 1 on Netflix before getting distracted by Battlestar Galactica...

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

NO VAK-SEEN!

It was really, really, really hard not to just throw the whole of S1 on the pile. "Code of Honor" is awful. "Justice" is just fucking stupid (and it was also a really weird episode to watch with parents). "Too Short a Season" is embarrassing.

But at the same time, there are also a ton of great S1 eps. "11001001" is fun and shows off some neat stuff, even if it overuses the holodeck. I love "Where No One Has Gone Before"—it's one of my favorite TNG episodes. And "The Battle" is just a cracking good time.

I wanted to put "season one" as my least favorite episode but they wouldn't let me.

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

NO VAK-SEEN!

It was really, really, really hard not to just throw the whole of S1 on the pile. "Code of Honor" is awful. "Justice" is just fucking stupid (and it was also a really weird episode to watch with parents). "Too Short a Season" is embarrassing.

But at the same time, there are also a ton of great S1 eps. "11001001" is fun and shows off some neat stuff, even if it overuses the holodeck. I love "Where No One Has Gone Before"—it's one of my favorite TNG episodes. And "The Battle" is just a cracking good time.

I wanted to put "season one" as my least favorite episode but they wouldn't let me.

Season 1 was basically an attempt to be a late-80s version of TOS. Only when they abandoned that did they come into their own.

I'm honestly surprised that "Emergence" didn't make the list. Holy shit that was terrible -- Braga and especially Menosky had just completely run out of steam at that point, and that was an episode where it was patently clear.

- Anything directed by Frakes- Any story that involved Riker and sex or a love interest.- Any story featuring Data's troubles with trying to emulate/understand humans.- Any story featuring Wesley's troubles with, well whatever the hell his troubles were.- Any story where the majority of the run time takes place in the freaking holodeck.

Now, as you say, you've got to have a language to communicate more basic ideas than the pure metaphor of the race in Darmok. They probably consider that language to be something like baby talk, and would consider it superlatively condescending to speak to an adult that way.

If they don't actually speak in this "baby talk", then it is not their language then there is no reason for the translator to latch on to that instead of noticing that a certain phrase obviously means something else from context. Now certainly, the translator might struggle to pick the two apart at first, especially for those phrases that are similar to normal ones, but the notion that it would give up and just translate baby talk is nonsense. And the notion that a human could decipher this language faster than the computer is similarly ridiculous.

I understand where you guys are coming from in your love for Darmok, but I have to agree with Peter. While the plot is a good setup for Picard, linguistically its utter nonsense. Totally pulls me out of the episode because I just start thinking about how it could never work.

Darmok has a good premise, but the execution is pretty bad like you and Peter said. So, for me it isn't among the worst TNG episodes, since there was so many which didn't even have a good basic idea.

In general I have to agree with Peter; TNG had more than its fair share of bad episodes, but it also had some very good ones. In that sense it was very much like TOS, just longer and perhaps it had a bit more forgettable run-of-the-mill episodes because of that.

I recently watched all of TNG, since I never had the opportunity to watch it on TV. It really does have an unusual number of bad episodes. All the episodes in the article I can mostly agree with. Yes, Darmok was seriously flawed, but at least amusing enough to watch until the end. I think the only thing saving me from going crazy during my TNG binge was the magic button that plays it at higher speed, though.

Maybe I just don't like TNG at all. I could almost believe it was an elaborate job creation program for actors (And I hated Q, despite the actor.)

Darmok's premise requires suspension of disbelief. Yes, it doesn't make sense, but come on: There are so many moments with Picard and the alien captain trapped on the planet that even if you can't get over the premise the episode shouldn't be on a worse list. (edit typos)

Funny, I am just now watching the series, season 4 "QPid" where they play Robing Hood...One of the fun things about the series is how they could do all these weird episodes which did not have anything to do with space or space travel.

The worst bits of Star Trek TNG for me to watch, are the parts where the episodes rely on technobabble. When I was 8, it was cool (possible future technology!) but as I have grown in age I have also grown in knowledge and I now find these episodes tedious.

Darmok is one of the episodes which is totally different from most of the other Trek episodes: very little technobabble, aliens that aren't understandable, lots of character development, a mystery that the audience can solve with the characters without being told all the parts, technology fails Picard and he has to work on his own abilities... So much more can be said.

Let's just take ONE of the above reasons and look closer: the translation of their language into English isn't intelligible. This one plot point throws the whole crew for a loop; they have relied on the universal translator for so long and now comes these bastards who can't be understood. Yet their language can be translate into English, but it doesn't seem to make any sense. This is Real Sci-fi as defined by Asimov:

"science fiction is that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance on human beings." — Isaac Asimov

watching the episode now, some things strike me as dated such as Data and Troi's inability to determine what search criteria to use to identify what the aliens are talking about. Although their use of google is probably typical of the average person's, these people are supposed to be highly trained technically and really Data should have done the search the instant the phrases were spoken. But hey, this was written in 1991.

Darmok, while certainly not the pinnacle of Sci-fi or even TNG, wasn't an actually bad episode, and certainly not one of the worst.

Personally, I think the first two seasons were largely awful, with good portions of garbage scattered through the remaining run. But I prefer to remember the greatness. Best of Both Worlds. Yesterday's Enterprise. Cause and Effect. And so many more.

But I do agree about Wesley. As Sheldon Cooper once said about Wil Wheaton, "And even at Star Trek conventions, they only let him in if he helps set up!"

I'd also like to say that I am really surprised that on a list of bad TNG episodes, nobody mentioned Code of Honor. Is that episode just so bad that we figure "Yeah, it goes without saying, everyone knows it's bad"?

NO VAK-SEEN!

It was really, really, really hard not to just throw the whole of S1 on the pile. "Code of Honor" is awful. "Justice" is just fucking stupid (and it was also a really weird episode to watch with parents). "Too Short a Season" is embarrassing.

But at the same time, there are also a ton of great S1 eps. "11001001" is fun and shows off some neat stuff, even if it overuses the holodeck. I love "Where No One Has Gone Before"—it's one of my favorite TNG episodes. And "The Battle" is just a cracking good time.

Why is Justice bad? I thought that was one of the better episodes of season 1, because it is a thinly veiled morality play. That is TNG's (and hell, sci fi in general) strength, using the lens of the unfamiliar to tell us something about the real world. Justice is all about whether or not ignorance of the law should be considered a valid defense, and I think it executes well on that premise. It has its bad moments, but overall the episode is very good imo.

Season 1 was basically an attempt to be a late-80s version of TOS. Only when they abandoned that did they come into their own.

No, it wasn't. Roddenberry didn't want strong conflicts between characters, which were among the strengths of TOS (despite Shatner's overacting). Later they had more conflicts (albeit never to the same degree as TOS). If you mean that they recycled plots from TOS, it is quite true, but it happened in later seasons as well.

To me, "Masks" was hands down the worst episode of the series. In a close tie was the horrible, horrible episode where Worf plays a sheriff in the old west.

I can forgive the early episodes in seasons one and two because the cast and writers were still getting their footing, and in foresight I can see what the show would grow into. But those horrible episodes in season seven were unforgivable, for wasting all that talent.

I've had an Amazon Prime membership for a few years now, and a couple of years ago, I started watching TNG at night. Needless to say, I've seen every episode at least 10 times in that span. Obviously, I'm in love with it, but, now, there are some episodes I intentionally skip and don't run until I'm falling asleep.

Certainly, as I mentioned above, Phantasms is one of those. I agree mostly with the story's list. Rascals is fun, Journey's End is OK, considering Picard's role, Up The Long Ladder's conflict plot is dramatic when Riker uses a phaser on the ill-gotten clones, and Angel One is somewhat humorous.

That being said, I strenuously disagree with Peter on Darmok. This is actually one of my favorites. The story's premise is great because it highlights what we might actually go through during a first-contact situation in space in our future. I seriously doubt we'll ever come up with a "Universal Translator," so this episode pulls at my hope that we someday venture out and find something we know absolutely nothing about.